Facebook to split soaring shares

Facebook, the world’s biggest social networking site, will split each of its shares into five, the company said.

It is making the move in order to be able to give larger stock grants to its employees.

A company spokesman, Larry Yu, said the split made sense because Facebook’s valuation has grown.

The split brings Facebook shares’ value closer to what might be expected for a privately held company, he said.

The company does not disclose the value of its shares, but they have recently traded at between $72 (£45.50) and $76 on SharesPost, which is a secondary stock market that lets. stockholders sell shares before a company goes public.

This values Facebook at up to $33.7 billion.

It will be the third time in its six-year history that the privately-held company has broken its shares into smaller units.

Facebook has around 500 million users and is closely watched by investors hoping to one day buy public shares in the fast-growing company.

Earlier this week, Facebook board member Peter Thiel told Reuters the company would probably sell shares to the public at some point, but not before late 2012.